Is it possible that SSDI has a noticeable impact on labor force participation, a measure that includes unemployed workers actively looking for work? It might, but as will be detailed in this blog post, there are more likely explanations for the relative decline in labor force participation in the United States compared to Europe, including more supportive labor market policies in Europe.

(This is the third of six blog posts on disability.)
In two earlier blog posts, I look at evidence compiled in Senate testimony by Stanford economist Mark Duggan arguing that financial incentives are driving a growth in disability rolls.

Are disability benefits becoming more generous? The average benefit awarded is roughly a third of the average wage, a ratio that has remained essentially unchanged since 1985. And as Harvard economist Jeffrey Liebman points out, rising inequality and other factors have reduced the value of disability benefits relative to productivity per worker.

A closer look at the evidence shows that SSDI benefits have become, if anything, less generous. Moreover, even research cited by critics shows SSDI receipt has a negligible impact on work effort because few applicants, including marginal applicants who were denied benefits, are able to earn a living afterward.

As I noted in earlier blog posts, Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute and retired Towers Watson executive Sylvester Schieber have been leading a chorus of retirement crisis deniers, based in large part on the claim that income surveys don’t count lump-sum distributions from retirement accounts.

In Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Andrew Biggs and Sylvester Schieber cited these statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):
“Despite a supposedly stingy Social Security program and ineffective retirement-savings vehicles, the average U.S.

The recent release of the Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances has many retirement researchers scratching their heads. As expected, GenXers’ savings (shaded blue lines in Figure 1) benefited from the rebound in stock prices and the economic recovery.

In the past several years, fears that underfunded public pensions are a growing burden on taxpayers have led to calls to cut employer-provided pension benefits through increased employee contributions, increased retirement ages, reduced cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), or other changes.

The tentative deal reached between Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and the Detroit pension funds has been characterized in the New York Times and other news reports as a victory for workers and retirees.

In honor of Equal Pay Day, my colleagues Heidi Shierholz and Hilary Wething suggest a number of ways to close the pay gap between men and women, including raising the minimum wage, enacting mandatory paid leave, helping workers unionize, shoring up employment law enforcement, enacting immigration reform, and passing the Paycheck Fairness Act.

After getting into hot water for criticizing Sen. Elizabeth Warren for wanting to expand Social Security, self-styled centrist Democrats Jonathan Cowan and Jim Kessler of Third Way are testing the retirement waters again by proposing, in a New York Times op-ed, to expand savings in IRAs.

Monique Morrissey, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Policy
How has the financial structure of Americans’ retirement evolved over the past fifty years?

At the National Academy of Social Insurance conference earlier this month, keynote speaker Michael Lind of the New America Foundation called for reducing tax subsidies for 401(k)s and other employer-based plans to help pay for expanded Social Security benefits, a view I share.

Details of the president’s new retirement plan emerged today, and it’s nothing to get excited about. On the bright side, it’s refreshing to see a focus on investment risk, since many 401(k) participants invest too aggressively based on the mistaken belief that cumulative returns average out over time, while risk-averse people may be put off from saving altogether.

The American Benefits Council, the American Council of Life Insurers, and the Investment Company Institute released a study this week entitled (no joke): Our Strong Retirement System: An American Success Story (pdf).

Overview
Today, many Americans rely on savings in 401(k)-type accounts to supplement Social Security in retirement. This is a pronounced shift from a few decades ago, when many retirees could count on predictable, constant streams of income from traditional pensions.

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Economic Policy Institute

EPI is an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States. EPI’s research helps policymakers, opinion leaders, advocates, journalists, and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans.